


underneath the stars we came alive

by bellawritess



Category: All Time Low (Band)
Genre: Based on an All Time Low Song, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, High School, Holding Hands, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Melancholy, Nostalgia, Oh, Reminiscing, Songfic, dmc genre baby!, i mean i wrote it while listening to good times orchestral on a loop, it's just pensive, or like......preemptive nostalgia?, romanticization of baltimore, so i don't know what you could possibly expect, teenage shit, to be clear this fic isn't sad or anything, yeah it's one of these
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28604631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellawritess/pseuds/bellawritess
Summary: “That’s what we’ve been saying,” Jack murmurs. “It won’t be the same. Nothing’s gonna be the same.”Alex opens his eyes and looks down at his and Jack’s hands, intertwined and resting on Jack’s thigh. “I know. But I can still want it to be.”(It's the night before graduation, and Alex isn't quite ready to say goodbye.)
Relationships: Jack Barakat/Alex Gaskarth
Comments: 18
Kudos: 15





	underneath the stars we came alive

**Author's Note:**

> well i can tell you that i listened to good times - orchestral arrangement 116 times on tuesday and this came of that. but mandie made the very good point that good times orchestral on a loop is a liminal space so i'd like to use that as my defense
> 
> anyway. thank you as always to [sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellingatbabylon) for reading this and being my forever cheerleader. what would i do without you, i simply do not know
> 
> title from good times (orchestral arrangement YES it matters ok orchestral just has a loop-able quality that og good times Does Not)

The night before graduation, Alex and Jack sneak out.

It isn’t really sneaking because their parents definitely know that they’ve gone, and probably know that they’re with each other, and besides Alex is an adult and Jack is almost one and they’ve been sneaking out since they had keys to their houses, but nobody stops them when they escape out of respective front doors and meet up at the skate park. Outside the perimeter of the park is a stretch of grass, so Alex sits there, and Jack sits next to him, close enough that their shoulders touch, and for a long time, they just sit.

The summery breeze ruffles their hair, filling the air with the scent of earth and rubber and warmth. They’re far enough outside the actual skate park that the kids on the other side, sitting and passing around a cigarette and making muted conversation, are hardly audible, only silhouettes. It’s late and dark, nearing ten. Alex tips his head backwards and looks up at the sky, and feels incredibly small.

They don’t usually stargaze because stargazing is kind of lame, and you can’t see the stars most nights here anyway. The skate park is a good place for it, free of street lamps or any other light pollution. Alex enjoys the way it feels to look up at the sky and know his own insignificance, even though sometimes it hurts. There’s a paradoxical comfort in the ache of being unimportant. Part of him wants to share that feeling with Jack, the way he wants to share everything with Jack. A bigger part wants to protect Jack from it.

It wouldn’t be true of Jack, though, in any case. Nobody in the galaxy is more important than Jack.

“Weird that this is the last time we’ll come here,” Jack murmurs. The feeling in Alex’s chest grows heavier.

“It’s not,” he says. “We’ll probably come back.”

“Really? You think we’ll play Warped Tour and then perform all over the country and then come back here?”

“You think we’re never gonna come back to Baltimore?” Alex says defensively.

Jack shakes his head. “I didn’t say Baltimore. I just mean _here,_ right here. This park.”

“Oh.” Alex kicks the grass with the heel of his shoe. “Well, I don’t know. I hope we do.”

“But you can barely even see the stars,” Jack says, pointing. “Don’t you wanna find somewhere you can at least see them better? Come on, Baltimore’s like the worst place for you and your astronomy obsession.”

“I don’t have a —” Alex breaks off. “I’m not…I’m just saying, I don’t know.” Their graduation looms like a death sentence, which, Alex knows, is not how it’s supposed to feel. For something they’ve been waiting on for years, it feels oddly final. It _is_ final, of course. They’ll finally be done with high school, and isn’t that what they’ve wanted? To undo this last shackle keeping them from leaping into adulthood? But it feels more threatening than promising right now, and Alex wishes it wouldn’t.

“Alright,” Jack says. “Look, I’m not saying I don’t want to come back here, I just…”

“It’s fine,” Alex says, because it is, or if it isn’t that’s not Jack’s fault. They’re both quiet for a moment. Alex watches the skater kids across the park as their laughter echoes. He doesn’t recognize them, though that doesn’t mean much — he’s not popular by any means, and they could still be classmates. They could be graduating tomorrow same as he is. Alex wonders if they’re scared. They certainly don’t seem to be.

“Everything’s gonna be so different now,” Jack says quietly.

Alex nods slowly. “Yeah.”

“In a good way, though.” Jack pauses. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. “I think so. We’re gonna do the band thing, which is what we want.”

“Yeah. Great. I have to be in a stupid band with three total douchebags.”

“Hey.” Alex elbows him. “Imagine how I feel.”

“You’re in a band with two douchebags and one hot piece of ass.”

“I wouldn’t say Rian’s a _hot piece of ass_.”

“You suck,” Jack says, Alex giggling. “You’re the worst. Fuck you. Never mind. I quit your shitty band.”

“You can’t quit,” Alex says. “We’d have to get TJ to rejoin.”

“Oh, fuck. God. That fucker’s not coming anywhere _near_ my band.” Jack scowls, but it’s good-natured. “Fine. I won’t quit. You got lucky this time, Gaskarth.”

“It’s so weird when you call me that.”

“You have such a good last name for threats, though,” Jack says. “Meanwhile nobody can threaten me, because _Barakat_ sucks. But I can threaten all of you. Dawson? Merrick? Gaskarth?”

“It’s ‘cause yours is three syllables.”

“Yeah. I’m not like other girls.”

Alex laughs. “You’re worse than other girls. You’re the worst girl.”

“If I was in a competition with Other Girls right now, I’d absolutely beat their asses,” Jack says with conviction. “No question.”

“You don’t even know what you’d be competing for. What if it was for who has the best boobs?”

“I’d still win.”  
“Your boobs are mediocre at _best,_ dude. You’re like, a six.”

“Excuse you, I’m a nine on a bad day.”

“Nine out of a hundred, maybe.”

“Fuck you,” Jack says, laughing. He leans into Alex’s side, and Alex decides _fuck it_ because this is the last time they’ll ever come here and if it goes wrong they can leave the memory in the grass and never return to it, and he grabs Jack’s hand, lacing their fingers together before Jack has the chance to pull away.

Jack doesn’t pull away.

It’s quiet for another couple of minutes, and then Jack leans his head onto Alex’s shoulder, sighs, and says, “I don’t know, maybe it’s a good thing.”

“What is?”

“That things will be different. I don’t want things to stay the same. Most stuff sucks, you know?”

Alex bites his lip. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“I mean, if we go from being a small-town East-Coast wannabe punk band to, like…” Jack waves his arm. “ _Literally_ anything bigger than that, that’s a good thing. To me.”

“I don’t want things to stay the same,” Alex agrees, chewing the inside of his cheek. “It’s just, sometimes you want things to change for the better but they get worse instead, and I’d rather nothing happen than that.”

“What do you mean? What’s gonna change for the worse?”

“Nothing, I mean. Nothing important. I think the band’s gonna get better. It’s just — I don’t know. I’m just saying that sometimes staying the same is better than things being different but in a worse way.”

“But you don’t _know._ Whatever you’re not doing because you’re scared of it going wrong could also go really right and you’re not gonna know unless you try.”

“Yeah. Or it might not.”

“Alex,” Jack says quietly, “what exactly are you talking about?”

Alex closes his eyes. He could admit it — _I’m talking about your hand in my hand and your head on my shoulder and loving you until I die even if you never love me back._ He could say something like that. It’s been on the tip of his tongue since probably freshman year, and he’s never said anything, but now things are going to change anyway. Their lives are going to change, and they’re leaving town for better or for worse or for both, and Jack hadn’t pulled his hand away.

But everything is fucking terrifying all of a sudden, and Alex can’t jeopardize this relationship, not when it means this much to him. And not just to him — if this kind of thing went south (the way it almost inevitably would), it would affect the band, too. They’re only just getting started. Alex can’t ruin this good thing before it has a chance to sprout wings.

“Nothing,” he mumbles. “Just thinking.”

The silence swallows them both up. Alex’s face feels warm even though the night has a coolness that’s clung on from May, and he can feel the words still poised at the ready, a million ways to tell Jack _I love you please forgive me please don’t let this ruin us please say you love me back but don’t lie to me but if you have to lie to say you love me then lie to me I don’t care_ — it’s pathetic. It’s fucking tragic. 

“I think I’m gonna miss it,” he says instead. “Here.”

Jack breathes out and shifts around, moving closer to Alex. “The skate park?”

“No. Well, yeah. Baltimore in general.” He sighs. “Probably the skate park especially, though. Maybe we’ll find other places to do this, and maybe the stars will be clearer or whatever, but it won’t be the same.”

“That’s what we’ve been saying,” Jack murmurs. “It won’t be the same. Nothing’s gonna be the same.”

Alex opens his eyes and looks down at his and Jack’s hands, intertwined and resting on Jack’s thigh. “I know. But I can still want it to be.”

Jack, as if he can see where Alex’s gaze is, squeezes his hand. “It might be better, though. We can still loiter at skate parks and sit in the grass and hold hands or whatever, just with better stars. How is that not better?”

Alex’s heartbeat skips at the idea that holding hands could become as essential to this experience as the stars and the skate park. He swallows. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be better, it’d just be different. And I’m not saying I don’t want things to be different. I do. I just like how it is now. I don’t think those are conflicting statements.”

“ _Conflicting statements,_ ” Jack repeats. “Did you swallow a dictionary?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I have one for lunch every day. Songwriter stuff, you wouldn’t understand.”

Jack snorts. He’s quiet for another moment. “Okay,” he finally allows. “I guess I see what you mean.”

“Everything has sacrifices,” Alex explains. “Every good thing comes with a bad thing. The good things I have, I’ve already made the sacrifices for them. Maybe something is gonna change, and maybe it’ll get better, but I’ll have to sacrifice something else, and I don’t know what. And I — I don’t think I’ll realize when it happens, but right now I know for a fact that the way things are right now, if they stayed the same, I wouldn’t have to give anything else up. I’m happy with what I have.”

“Christ, Al,” Jack huffs. “You’re too smart to be in a band with us.”

“No, come on,” Alex says, nudging Jack. “You know what I mean, right?”

Jack sighs. “Yeah. I get you.”

“But,” Alex continues, “I’m not saying I don’t want things to change, okay? I do. But you have to admit it’s a little…”

“Scary?”

This time, Alex sighs, feeling a little lighter, a little worse, a little better. “Yeah. Scary.”

Jack nods against Alex’s shoulder. “Don’t tell my mom I said that. She keeps asking if I’m nervous about graduating. I just keep on telling her I can’t wait to blow this joint. I don’t think she actually knows what I mean by that.”

Alex breathes a laugh. “Only if you don’t tell my parents.”

“Deal.”

The kids across the park have been joined now by two different kids, and the volume of their exchange is rapidly rising. Snatches of argument echo across the skate park — _fuck off_ and _not even your girlfriend_ and _wouldn’t last thirty seconds_ , and a bunch of other boring shit. It’s almost enough to make Alex feel bad for them. What are those kids doing with their lives? Burning out at a skate park? What a miserable existence.

It’s not like he has any leg to stand on, but the most hopeful, optimistic, confident part of Alex believes so hard in All Time Low that he can barely even fathom that they might crash and burn. If it’s simple math, then good band + touring opportunities = success. This kind of thing can snowball fast. Alex has seen it happen before, and it only makes sense that it would happen again. Sure, a lot of it is chance, and luck, but they dealt with that when they somehow miraculously got signed to Hopeless. Now it’s just a matter of working hard and wanting it more than anyone, and they are, and they do. They might be assholes or arrogant kids or wannabe punks, but Alex has never felt more drive than at one of their band practices.

“Do you think we’re famous?” he asks.

“Definitely not,” Jack says. “Do you?”

Alex shrugs. “No, not now. Do you think we’ll ever be?”

“Ugh, who cares?” Jack says distastefully. “Probably not. None of us are hot enough to be famous.”

“I don’t care if we are, but it’d be cool,” Alex says. “Plus the more famous you get, the more opportunities you have.”

“As long as we get to play music for a living,” Jack says, “I don’t care who thinks we’re famous.”

Alex can get behind that philosophy.

“I guess,” he starts, and then stops, and then pauses, trying to get the right words in the right order so they make sense to say. “It’s just — it’s not goodbye, but it also kind of is, you know?”

Jack hums. “Yeah.”

“I know we’ll come back,” Alex continues quietly, “but if the band works out the way we want it to, it’s never gonna be like this. Like. Ever again.” Jack grip tightens infinitesimally, so Alex returns the favor. “I want that. But I like this. I’m excited to leave but I’m scared to be gone. Glad to have memories but worried we won’t get the chance to make more. It’s fucking confusing. That’s all.”

He inhales, holds, exhales. Jack stays quiet. The punks across the skate park have somehow settled their differences and are now all sitting together, and there’s another cigarette going around. In the air lingers the familiar smell of a world Alex has lived in for so many years, a place he’s grown so used to that he can hardly recall living anywhere else.

(Or knowing anyone else. Jack’s hand is warm in his, and the breeze skates over their bare knuckles, creating the illusion of a nonexistent chill. Alex can’t remember the names of the friends he had in England, and he wonders if he should feel worse about that.)

“Hey,” Jack says suddenly. “You remember when Zack kickflipped into that bee’s nest?”

Alex startles. “Yeah, fuck.” He laughs. “That was the worst day of my life, I’m pretty sure.”

Jack snorts. “Still mostly convinced Zack is part-cryptid or something like that. Honestly, nobody can be that chill about a beehive they just _fucking kickflipped into_. No normal human being.”

“Man, Zack’s not a normal human being.”

“I _know_ that. That’s what I’m saying.”

“Man,” Alex says, faraway but smiling. “Was that last year? Feels like forever ago.”

Jack nods. “Know what else was last year? When we got kicked out of history class on the first day ‘cause fucking Mike yelled _deez nuts!_ ”

Alex chokes on a laugh this time. “Fuck, are you serious?”

Jack is also laughing now. “Yeah, holy shit. I can’t believe he did that. That was so fucking funny. Like, poor Ms. Dees, but come on, there’s _no_ way she’s never heard that before.”

“That was fucking hilarious. Oh my God. Rian was in tears.”

“Bro, _I_ was in tears. Best fucking moment of my life.”

“God,” Alex says, grinning stupidly at the memory, which already feels like a lifetime ago. “I can’t believe — fuck, that was so _long_ ago. Man. Do you think we’re getting old?”

“ _You’re_ getting old. I’m ripening. Like fine wine.”

“Oh my God,” Alex says, ignoring that weird comparison. “Remember when we got so wasted we were still drunk when we went to work the next day?”

“No,” Jack says in amused horror. “Oh fuck. Yes. That was so bad.”

“You kept putting your face in the fucking freezer and being like, _it feels so good, Alex, you have to try —”_

“Dude, oh my fucking God.”

“I think that’s the most number of times Rian has ever said _that’s what she said_ in one day.”

Jack laughs and hides his face in Alex’s shoulder. “I’m not ashamed,” he declares proudly. “So worth it. That was an awesome party.”

Alex has to admit it was an awesome party, though he’s not sure which was worse afterwards: the hangover or the tirade Rian went off on once their shift ended that day. 

“Anyway,” Jack sighs, lifting up their linked fingers to bounce them once against Alex’s knee. “We’ve had some good times.”

All of a sudden the oppressive, sinking feeling is back in Alex’s chest. It doesn’t feel quite as heavy, but it certainly isn’t light; above all it’s extremely present and impossible to ignore. And on top of all that, they’re still holding hands and Alex doesn’t know why. Jack definitely hasn’t forgotten, since he keeps moving them, and yet he’s made no attempt to release Alex and recover his hand. 

“Yeah,” Alex says wistfully. “Good times.”

“Hey, Alex,” Jack says, in the same abrupt tone of voice with which he’d brought up the failed kickflip. “D’you ever — d’you think we’ll ever change? Me and you?”

The kids across the skate park have begun a cacophonous chorus of some song Alex has never heard of, each trying to out-sing the others and creating a mostly dissonant mess of melodies. They don’t blend well, but as the singing floats up and away into the air, Alex can’t help but think that those kids might know something he doesn’t.

“Of course not,” he tells Jack, even knowing that there’s no way to know.

Jack hesitates. “Not at all? Not even…for the better?”

“For — huh? How could we change for the better?”

And then, like rocks sliding together on a fault line, everything suddenly locks into place.

(Not only has Jack not pulled away, he’s moved closer. _Closer._ )

“Oh,” he murmurs.

“I figure,” Jack says nervously, “that — if we’re gonna — if we’re doing this, we have to be, you know. Open hand. Also, um, like you said, or — maybe I said it, but anyway, everything’s fucking changing anyway, right? So, um, if there was ever a time…to, uh, ruin something like this…”

“You’re not ruining it,” Alex manages to say with a pounding heart. “Unless you’re fucking with me, which would just — you’re not fucking with me, right?”

“No,” Jack says. He picks his head up off Alex’s shoulder, exposing it to the summer air, and looks at Alex. There’s not much left between them — an inch or two of space and a couple explanations, maybe. “I’m not. I just thought that if I was ever gonna say something, it should probably be before we go, and, like, do this for real. Um, just in case.”

“But I said you’re not ruining anything,” Alex repeats. His palm feels slick. “If you’re saying what I think you are.”

“I am,” Jack says, so simple, so sure. It feels far, far too easy, but Alex can’t help but take Jack at his word, because despite everything Jack tries to telegraph about his personality he’s still the person Alex trusts the most, probably in the entire world.

“Oh,” Alex says breathlessly. “‘Cause I like you, you know.”

“I was hoping that you did, honestly,” Jack tells him with a familiarly wry smile. But there’s also something solemn in his eyes, and it takes over when he adds, “I just, I don’t know. It’s the end and the beginning at the same time, and it feels weird having both and not knowing how to feel about it or if I should be happy or sad or both or what. But.” 

“But?” So, so close. Alex can feel Jack’s breath.

“But this would make it two beginnings and only one ending,” Jack says in a low voice. “If — if you want it to be, I mean.”

Close enough to kiss, now. Close enough that Alex could shut his eyes and ignore the reasons that this could go badly. He shouldn’t do that. It’s smart to be careful, and it’s in the top ten Worst Band Decisions to date your bandmate.

But.

But Alex is already in love with him, so what’s one more mistake? This could be a decision that should go south but instead shoots north. It’s an unpredictable change, but maybe change isn’t determined by whether or not it’ll be good or bad. Maybe it’s just whether or not they want it.

Alex wants this to be a beginning with Jack. He wants a million.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, I do. Fuck it. You know? Just, fuck it. Let’s start something.”

Jack laughs a little bit. “Shit. I was hoping you’d say that.”

And then they’re kissing, and the breeze swirls around them like a promise carrying them through the worst of the next few days, and Jack is warm and gentle and Alex doesn’t know if he would call himself a romantic but Jack kisses him like they’re already in love, like this isn’t the beginning of the end but The Beginning.

(Maybe they are in love. Alex certainly is.)

It’s overlapping stories, Alex thinks to himself, because this feels bigger than just turning from one chapter to the next. This is closing the first book and picking up the second one, and the last page will run out when they receive their diplomas tomorrow.

If this is how they’re finishing book one, Alex can’t possibly imagine what book two looks like for them. For him and Jack, for All Time Low, for all the people that he’d write into his sequel if he got to choose.

Mostly, he knows he doesn’t. Friendships come and go and there’s not a lot Alex can do to change that. 

But he gets to choose one person. He already has.

And Jack's chosen him too.

They separate because Jack laughs. It breaks out of him like he’s not expecting it, startling Alex into laughing as well. “What?”

“I don’t know,” Jack says, giggling uncontrollably. “I don’t know. I just feel so fucking weird. Like, tomorrow is our last day of school for probably the rest of our lives forever, and I finally get to kiss you. I don’t think I can even pretend to be sad now.”

Alex huffs, though he’s grinning. “You could _pretend._ We’re still saying goodbye to a huge part of our lives.”

“Yeah, but fuck, Alex.” He says _Alex_ with such intention, like he wants the opportunity to say it even if he doesn’t have to. It sends a thrill down Alex’s spine. “I’m so ready to be done. It’s like you said. We’ll have to make sacrifices anyway. If the sacrifice for _this_ ” — he gestures between himself and Alex — “is leaving Baltimore, that’s — you know? That’s barely a sacrifice. I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’m _gonna._ ”

So much of this town is in Alex; his heartbeat pulses with the rhythm of the school marching band, the warbling melody of any of his parents’ records races through his veins instead of blood, and when he breathes, his lungs don’t just fill with oxygen but with Baltimore air. And beyond that, so much of him is in the town, in broken guitar strings in their basement and his dirty Rita’s uniform and ugly fliers for tiny shows advertising _All Time Low tonight!_ stuffed into recycling cans or pinned up on shitty venue walls.

And even as he thinks of how settled he is in this city, he can feel his roots receding, digging themselves up in anticipation of a new life, one that guarantees no roots for a long time. A sacrifice, sure.

But.

Alex shakes his head. “Nothing’s a sacrifice if it means I get to be with you.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, smiling warmly like he’s not the most mischievous seventeen-year-old piece of shit on the planet. As if that’s not so much of what Alex loves about him. “Alright, we already fucking knew you’re better with words than me. That’s what I meant.”

“I understood. I just wanted to say it to you. Because it’s the same for me.”

Jack’s smile grows. “You know, Al, this might be lame but I have a really, really good feeling about this.”

Alex's chest feels light and airy as he leans in, and this time when they kiss there’s no question at all: this is a beginning.

This is _the_ beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact, the story about zack doing a kickflip into the bee's nest is a true story. and so is the one of them being kicked out of history class for laughing when someone yelled deez nuts. i do my research
> 
> thank you for joining me love you lots i'm on tumblr [@clumsyclifford](http://clumsyclifford.tumblr.com/) if you wanna say hi xoxo love you (again) bye


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